TOBI LARK - Freedom Train / We're All In This Together - Canada Funk Gospel 7" - EP
7"

TOBI LARK - Freedom Train / We're All In This Together



(Funk Gospel Soul Rock, vinyl 45)
Label: Nimbus
NNS 9011
Format: 45
Record VG++
Cover VG+
Category: Soul
Notes:

Tobi Lark & "Toronto"

Singer Tobi Lark was born (named Bessie Gupton) in Alabama and raised in Detroit, where, like many soul and r&b singers, she performed in church choirs as a young girl. The daughter of gospel singer Emma Washington, Tobi got her first job in showbiz by singing with B.B. King, and went on to a career backing up The Impressions, The Four Tops, Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett, King Curtis, Cannonball Adderley and Duke Ellington, among others. She also recorded a few Northern Soul singles under the name Tobi Legend; this video of her song "Happiness Is Here" includes a bit more of her backstory in the accompanying writeup.

Towards the end of the '60s, Lark moved to Montreal after a divorce and eventually wound up in Toronto, where she performed with Ronnie Hawkins, landed a lead role in a production of Hair and started up her own musical revue at a club named The Blue Orchid.

She also recorded the single I'm posting today with a group of Toronto-based musicians collectively billed as "Toronto." After that her trail goes a little cold, although the article in this post's very first link mentions that she moved back and forth between Windsor, Detroit and Toronto, continued to perform as a solo and backup singer into the mid-'90s, and that, tragically, her son died and she had health problems of her own.





This single was recorded "live" (that's how they print it on the back cover) in 1970 at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Toronto

by executive producer Jack Richardson, producers Terry Vollum and John de Nottbeck (who went on to work with Max Webster), arrangers Ben McPeek and de Nottbeck, and engineer Dave Greene.

Tobi Lark's musical backing consisted of George Semkiw (rhythm guitar), Gord Waszek (12 string guitar), Kim Mitchell (lead guitar), Jim Morgan (bass), Ray Reeves (organ), Ben McPeek (piano), Craig Richardson (tambourine), John de Nottbeck (drums) and Dave Cairns (drums on "Freedom Train").

Then there's the chorus, which lists (I counted) 78 (!) people, none of whom I recognize or will list here. "We're All In This Together" is a bombastic number that reminded me of Joe Cocker during his Mad Dogs and Englishmen days. And "Freedom Train" is less a fully completed song than a bluesy jam with gospel overtones.